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Teaching & Learning

The AHA's broad-based teaching mission includes making resources available to educators at all levels and at public history venues, introducing and integrating historians into the discipline, providing ongoing education for historians at every stage of their careers—through topical and professional sessions at the annual meeting, and by way of both innovative web resources and distinguished print publications.

Historians are equally concerned with learning—their own ongoing research and other activities that expand their mission to bring history into public life. The AHA provides resources to historians in all fields and career paths, and advocates for the profession as a whole.

NEW! - Future of the African American Past Video Resources

On May 19-21, 2016, the AHA and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) co-hosted the groundbreaking conference The Future of the African American Past. Video segments and reference material from each of the nine conference sessions are now available in AHA's online collection of teaching resources, and can be used to guide teaching and learning on a wide breadth of topics in African American history.

Teaching Resources

The American Historical Association has a long-standing commitment to teaching and history education at all levels, and supports teaching in a wide variety of ways. The AHA has developed resources for classroom teaching through the years, and the AHA Teaching Division is actively working on advancing conversations about teaching history. Find resources for use in your own teaching in our new Teaching Resources section, recently redesigned for greater easy of use.

The Decision to Secede and Establish the Confederacy: A Selection of Primary Sources

The American Historical Association encourages continued public debate about monuments to Confederate leaders and about the public spaces and buildings named after those individuals, as well as the role of Confederate flags in public culture. Historians’ recent experiences in media interviews have suggested that too few participants in these conversations have read the essential primary sources that clearly articulate the reasons for secession and the establishment of a new nation. This page links to a limited set of documents with a singular focus: why did state governments decide to secede and form a new nation?

2016 Tuning Core Document

The Tuning Project's History Discipline Core is a statement of the central habits of mind, skills, and understanding that students achieve when they major in history. The document reflects the iterative nature of the tuning process. The most recent version was published in November 2016.

Teaching and Learning Video Resources

Teaching is an essential skill for any historian, and the AHA works hard to produce resources for those teaching at all career stages and at all levels of history. Our Teaching and Learning video library includes workshops on K-12 and undergraduate teaching, reflections from historians on globalizing their US survey courses, and sessions on issues of vital importance to history education such as learning outcomes, dual enrollment, and the transition from high school to college.

A New Guide for Teaching in Civics, Economics, Geography, and History

In collaboration with over 20 states and 15 social studies content organizations, including the AHA, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) has released a guide to help states strengthen their social studies standards. The "College Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies" encourages states to upgrade their social studies standards by offering robust guidelines to promote inquiry-based learning in civics, economics, geography, and history. AHA members and staff, joined by representatives of the Teaching Division, worked closely with the NCSS, state representatives, educators, and scholars to ensure that the standards demonstrate best practices in the discipline of history.